White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed Tuesday that President Donald Trump is the “most informed person on planet Earth” about the threats facing the U.S.
Asked why Trump does not read his President’s Daily Brief after reports surfaced that intelligence reports concerning Russia putting a bounty on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan seemingly went unread, McEnany responded: “The president does read. The president is the most informed person on planet Earth when it comes to the threats that we face.”
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told NBC on Monday that the intelligence was included in the PDB but that Trump was not briefed on it since the threat was not “actionable.”
“I believe it may have been” in the PDB, McCaul said.
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“I think the way the process works is that he gets briefed about three times a week on sort of actionable, credible items,” the legislator told NBC. “And the decision was made that this was not at that point in time a credible, actionable piece of intelligence. And if at any point it did, it would be raised to his attention.”
McEnany also slammed the initial reporting from the New York Times, saying that “this level of controversy and discord plays directly into the hands of Russia and unfortunately serves their interests.”
She additionally criticized the anonymous intelligence officer who leaked the story, claiming that it hurts the intelligence community as a whole.
“Who’s going to want to cooperate with the United States intelligence community?” she said. “Who’s going to want to be a source or an asset if they know that their identity could be disclosed? Which allies will want to share information with us if they know that some rogue intelligence officer can go splash that information on the front page of a major U.S. newspaper?”
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